


Sleeper (Anywhere But Here Remix)

by amathela



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-15
Updated: 2009-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/pseuds/amathela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I'm a frakking Cylon.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeper (Anywhere But Here Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> A remix of [Empty. Vulnerable. Missing Something.](http://aprilleigh24.livejournal.com/1920.html) by aprilleigh24. Spoilers up to episode _4:20 - Daybreak._

Her locker is quickly accumulating the weight of things she'd rather not acknowledge. Wet clothes, a towel stained with rust, a tube of yellow paint.

(Her mirror is still stained yellow in places. She tells herself it's somebody's idea of a practical joke.)

Kara teases her, later, about the mess; she laughs, and says she never was very good at picking up her clothes. (She can't remember if it's true, but it sounds real enough.) Almost everything she owns ends up somehow spread out on her bed, clothes tucked messily under her pillow, and she tells herself that's okay; that she's just busy, that it has nothing to do with the stench of ill-kept secrets every time she opens her locker.

There's a photograph of her and Tyrol, taken so long ago she can barely remember it. It's slightly faded, torn a little from where it's been tossed aside, but she looks happy in it. Boomer thinks about throwing it away, about starting fresh, and then tucks it into the side of her bunk with the others.

-

She doesn't need to look at Tigh to know exactly what she'll see in his expression. Hatred. Contempt.

She imagines they'd be in hers, too, if she looked in a mirror.

She doesn't watch as he leaves, doesn't bother glancing over at the guard; he's under orders to shoot her if she so much as blinks, and for a second, it's tempting. She can hear the shuffle of his boots as he scuffs one foot across the ground, feel the cold metal floor beneath her palms, taste the blood from where the wound in her cheek tore open. None of it is important.

Tyrol comes, and he looks at her like he never knew her, like he has no idea who - what - she is. She wants to tell him that she's just Sharon, just _Boomer,_ but she's not so sure, any more. All she knows is that nothing she thinks can be trusted.

"Chief," she says, quietly. It's not like she expects him to respond, but she can't help thinking -

If he believed in her, she'd be all right.

-

Her hands and feet are bound, wrapped in chains, and she moves slowly, half-afraid she'll stumble, half-afraid if she moves any faster she'll end up getting to the cell where she's being led. Around each corner, the crowd seems to grow thicker, their whispers building to a crescendo of hurled accusations.

_Cylon. She's a frakking Cylon._

She wants to look at them, to tell them to frak off, but she can barely get her eyes to focus. She's dimly aware of Tyrol somewhere nearby, and she pushes everything else away, letting the walls of the ship fade and retreat until she's anywhere but here.

(In her head, she can still hear the echoes of gunfire.)

-

She'd recognise the tags anywhere, and for a moment, she feels a sharp, aching twist in her gut. Kara's tags, and she gave them to him; Boomer isn't sure what that means, but it has to mean something.

(Her own tags are lost to her, but she still remembers the feel of them, cool against her skin, the barely-present weight on her chest that told her she was a part of something bigger than herself. She still has her old uniforms, but they're a poor imitation; her tags, like Kara's, stand for something, _mean_ something, and their absence means more than she wants to acknowledge.)

"What kind of people are you?" he asks, and she doesn't have an answer for that; instead, she tosses him his gun, and watches as he leaves.

She isn't one of them any more - not human, not military, not a member of their resistance - but maybe she can be something else.

-

Sam sees Athena on the deck, in the ready room, and he wants to ask her how she does it.

How she can be a Cylon and a person. How she can wear the uniform, have a family, how she can be so certain exactly who - what - she is.

(He's not so sure, any more.)

He wants to ask her how she could turn her back on everything she ever knew. How he's supposed to react to finding out everything he ever thought was a lie.

He doesn't think she'd have an answer for that.

-

'Cylon' blazes in yellow paint across his pillow, half-hidden by the mess of clothes soaked in alcohol and strewn across the bunk.

(He wants to believe it was an accident, or some kind of glitch in his programming, his subconscious rebelling against what he knows he is. The paint isn't going to come out.)

There's nothing salvageable in the torn books and photographs, and the alcohol isn't the worst of it. He slams the door on the empty locker, and tells himself he doesn't mind doing his own laundry, tries to believe that the stench of urine isn't going to stick to him for days.

There's a photo of him and Kara, on New Caprica. They're surrounded by people who were once his friends, smiling like they think they're really going to be happy, like they have no idea what's coming. He tries not to wonder if some of those people were responsible for this mess.

He throws the photograph away with the rest of it.

-

He finds Kara alone on the observation deck. (Nobody wants to look outside any more.) He told himself he'd give her space, room to breathe, but he can't stay away any longer.

She doesn't turn around, and he doesn't move closer.

"Who are you?" she asks. It's too soft to be an accusation, too flat to be curiosity. "Who were you?"

_I'm Samuel T. Anders,_ he thinks. That's all he knows.

"Who am I?" she asks, and he knows it wasn't meant for him.

-

If he could, he'd tell her he knows exactly who she is. That she's Starbuck. That he believes in her.

He always has.

-

Tigh hands him the note, and Sam barely looks at it.

"What is it?" he asks. He can see people circling around them, watching them warily, and he hopes they overhear. He's tired of keeping secrets.

"Private quarters," Tigh says, and Sam hates what he sees in his expression. Pity. Obligation. It's too much, and he doesn't need any favours from the Cylon XO.

"The date's wrong," he says, and Tigh grunts. Kara was dead when the request was approved, and even if she's back now, that doesn't change the truth.

He can't help but notice the whispers of the crew as he walks away, and he pauses for a moment before telling the nearest deckhand to frak off. The man flinches, backs away to huddle with his companions, and Sam closes his eyes.

He tells himself it doesn't matter what they think, and tries to imagine himself anywhere but here.

-

Boomer can't remember what she wanted to be as a child, but that's okay; she was never really a child.

The first thing she ever wanted - really wanted - was to be a raptor pilot on board the _Galactica._ She never would have done it without Adama.

She owed him one, she thinks.

-

All Sam's life - all he can remember of it - he wanted to play Pyramid. There was always something about the game that called to him, angles and symmetry, like a complex equation coming together.

He flies the _Galactica_ into his last perfect shot.


End file.
